


step on a crack

by spookykingdomstarlight



Category: American Gods (TV)
Genre: Backstory, Debt, First Meetings, M/M, Power Imbalance, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-05
Updated: 2017-10-05
Packaged: 2018-12-22 10:21:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11965404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookykingdomstarlight/pseuds/spookykingdomstarlight
Summary: A debt hangs between them, heavy as the clouds above their heads, laden with a cold, inexorable weight. He knows it even if he doesn’t feel the truth of it.And he takes too long to acknowledge it.





	step on a crack

**Author's Note:**

  * For [days4daisy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/days4daisy/gifts).



They meet during a thunderstorm in the center of America, the clouds violently purple and gray with anger. In another twenty years, this particular spot will be commemorated in stone and brass. In a hundred years or more, it will be a tourist trap for idiots who don’t know geography nor the True Significance of Such Things and Places. But for right now, it’s still only the biggest crossroads in the world that no one cares about. Well, metaphorically anyway, given there are neither roads nor crosses here. “You’re a fucking cunt,” Sweeney says, water dripping into his eyes and mouth and every other crevice he has and then some. Might be there’s hail mixed in. Ice slashes at his skin, prickling and cold.

What a fucking show-off.

A man— _the_ man, perhaps—steps out of the storm. His boots don’t squelch in the mud. Water doesn’t plaster his hair to his head. His teeth catch the light from a perfectly timed bolt of lightning as it lashes across the sky. The whip-crack of thunder swallows his good-natured laugh. Sweeney hates him already and he isn’t fooled by him and he definitely does not feel the same fear now that drove him from his rightful throne so, so long ago. An itch to run doesn't race up his legs. “And a good day to you, too, Mad Sweeney.”

“Fuck off. It’s midnight.”

“Mouthy,” the man—but he is no man, let him have his name, _Wednesday_ , he goes by it now, Sweeney and all the world knows it—says. Names are powerful, after all, and these days they are as changeable as the wind. Wednesday’s good eye gleams with avarice. Or perhaps it’s his bad eye. “I can’t say I hate it.”

“And I can’t say I give a shite.” The ground sucks at the soles of his shoes and make it impossible for him to stomp his feet the way he wants to. “Why the fuck am I here?”

“You owe me.” Lightning flashes again, the thunder right on its tail. A raven might caw in the distance, but it’s impossible to know for sure. Though Sweeney squints, the sheets of rain are impenetrable, impervious to sight. Distant sound, too, is impossible to isolate. “I’ve come to collect.”

“I don’t fuck strangers, sorry.” But that’s not true at all and Wednesday knows it. And even if it was true, Wednesday’s no stranger to him. It’s meant to be a joke, but even Sweeney winces at just how put out he sounds to his own ears. Even to himself, it’s clear he’s concerned. And not even about the possibility of Wednesday wanting _that_ from him.

Sweeney would be lucky if that’s all Wednesday were to ask of him.

Sweeney’s luck, these days, ebbs and flows, swirling like eddies in the tide, impossible to predict or guard against. It takes him every which way and deposits him where it will.

Like here. Now. The center of America. With Wednesday and his fucking ravens.

A debt hangs between them, heavy as the clouds above their heads, laden with a cold, inexorable weight that will not diminish tonight, or ever. He knows it even if he doesn’t feel the truth of it.

And he takes too long to acknowledge it.

There is murderous intent in Wednesday’s eyes now and it is tempered by a joviality Sweeney refuses to find terrifying. He takes one step forward, then another, and then he’s inches from Sweeney’s face. His mouth seems even closer than that to Sweeney’s mouth. His eyelashes, little more than curving shadows, flicker downward and back up again. His hand, softer than it looks, brushes across Sweeney’s cheek until Sweeney comes to his senses and jerks away.

A thrill of anticipation flashes through him, unbidden and unwanted. Wednesday isn’t a god of love or lust or anything like that, but Sweeney’s also never much known what was good for him. And power carries its own sort of pull, doesn’t it?

For a moment, he misses Essie, those early days in the American colonies. He might have been parted from his homeland, but things had been simpler then, too. After all, he hadn’t yet drawn Wednesday’s attention while Essie still lived.

“We all remember the last time you ran, Suibhne.”

Sweeney’s chin tips up, challenging. Anger courses through him at the casual way Wednesday speaks, but he keeps it in check, if barely. A twitch in his cheek is the only giveaway and Sweeney hopes he can’t yet read him that well. Wednesday acts like consequences are for other people. Sweeney would very much like to prove that belief wrong. “War’s not my particular forte. A certain saint made sure of that.”

That’s not quite true either, but it’s easier to pretend it is.

“Curses are a bitch,” Wednesday agrees with a sweeter temper than any grown man should possess, rolling his shoulders before opening his arms wide. His grin would outshine the sun if it was daytime. “Good thing I don’t need a warrior.”

“Not yet,” Sweeney mutters. Wednesday is bad news. Sweeney knows this. But he’d known from the moment those ravens found him in that tavern in upstate New York, after that incident with the mob, that whether Wednesday is bad news or not wouldn’t matter very, very soon.

He’d been right. And drunk, but mostly right.

Wednesday’s hands take Sweeney’s face between them, his fingers sliding through his hair and pressing against his skull. There is strength hidden away in these old man’s bones. His nails could rip Sweeney’s scalp to shreds if Wednesday wanted them to. He could crush Sweeney with a single clap of his palms. Probably his tongue could weave an argument that could turn Sweeney’s luck against him.

Sweeney isn’t, isn’t _quite_ sure he minds. Because then Wednesday is kissing him, and the storm raging around them is nothing at all compared to it, like he’s gathered its power into himself and is pushing it into Sweeney, too, as though to say: _look at this, look at what I can do, you’re fucked, Sweeney. You’re fucked. Nothing you’ve got can touch this._

His stomach churns and seizes. A frost spreads, cracking slow and inexorable, toward his heart and grips him in its cold, icicle-sharp claws. Squirming, he tries to pull himself out of Wednesday’s grasp.

He is, of course, only released when Wednesday allows it and not a moment sooner.

Wednesday’s eyes are darker when Sweeney looks at him again and it’s not just because the lightning has lessened and the rain has let up. Even the air feels lighter.

 _Fuck_ , he thinks, _just get me the fuck out of here_.

“Are you my man, Sweeney?” Wednesday asks, simple and oh, so pleasant.

There is only one answer.

Sweeney’s gorge rises around the words he knows he has to speak. Deals will always fuck you in the end. Especially the ones you don’t know about. His heart plods back to life, twisting around and finding a beat again, this one far faster than he’s used to. He can no longer hear the sound of thunder over the blood crashing in his temples, his ears, his wrists.

One answer.

“Yes,” Sweeney says, hating himself for it all the while, “I’m your fucking man.”


End file.
